As I mentioned the other day, Toby and I went to cupcake camp on Saturday. I had never heard of cupcake camp, but apparently it’s a thing. The idea is a free place where people can share and eat cupcakes. Attendees had to sign up ahead of time for a free ticket, but not everyone had to bring cupcakes.

The whole thing took place at Blue Hill Tavern in Baltimore, which seemed very nice. But unfortunately, the event itself wasn’t very well organized. There weren’t any tablecloths or signs (some people brought their own, but a lot of people — including me — just wrote what type of cupcakes they had on scrap paper). And while I thought we were only supposed to bring a dozen cupcakes of one type, other people dozens and dozens, and/or multiple flavors.

I should have brought my cupcake tree, but it looked like most of the other people also didn’t realize there wouldn’t be any stands. We all just put our cupcakes out on the tables wherever they’d fit. (The cupcakes on the left are rosewater and chocolate stout, and the mini cupcakes on the right are blueberry-bacon)

The Cookie Monster cupcakes were blue velvet, and the cupcakes on the right are Harry Potter butterbeer. They were really cute.

I’m not sure what type of cupcakes these are, but they look awesome.

We actually weren’t sure when we could start eating the cupcakes. Everyone was just standing around awkwardly, and then suddenly people started eating cupcakes, so we we followed.

Toby and I tasted the blueberry-bacon, the Cookie Monster, mojito, rosewater and chocolate-marshmallow (made by our new friend, Courtney). We liked the blueberry-bacon, mojito and chocolate-marshmallow. Later, we tasted one of the butterbeer cupcakes (yummy), a gingerbread cupcake (also good) and a chocolate-pretzel cupcake we didn’t really care for.

Toby also told me there was a girl who was scared to put her cupcakes out. That made me so sad! I hope she put them out eventually.

These were the cupcakes for judging. Most of these were left over afterward, so I’m guessing they just split one cupcake of each type for all the judges.

There wasn’t any milk or savory food available, so we got sugar overload pretty quickly. And the judges didn’t start eating/testing until most of us had been there an hour, so we ended up just sitting around at the bar (they had a great bartender working, thank goodness!) for almost two hours. That’s when we met Courtney and her mother, and a woman named Jen who has one of the coolest jobs of all time — rescuing, rehabilitating and tracking sea animals (like sea turtles and manatees).

I didn’t win any of the categories. They only announced the names of the winners, not the types of cupcakes, but the blueberry-bacon cupcakes won “best tasting,” the Cookie Monster cupcakes won “best decorated” and I think the butterbeer cupcakes won “most creative.” I’m not sure who won “best use of seasonal ingredients,” but it may have been some pumpkin beer cupcakes that arrived after we had eaten. There was also a vegan and/or gluten-free category, and I’m not sure who won that.

But there was also a raffle for the framed paper cutout art above… and I won.

You can’t tell, but I’m wearing a Juicy Couture cupcake necklace. Of course.

Anyway, after all that sugar, we needed some good savory food — so we went to Blue Moon Cafe in Fells Point and had a cheese omelet (me) and biscuits and gravy (Toby). Perfect.